Gobble Gobble!

Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone! Can you believe it - time sure does fly!! We had a wonderful weekend and were so grateful to get to celebrate with our favorite Texans! Julie is a trooper and still cooked Thanksgiving diner despite being prego! (Yuck raw turkey- I don't know if I could have done it while pregnant) It was a wonderful meal and we had so much fun chillin' and being fat on turkey day! Sunday I gave a talk in sacrament meeting on gratitude which was good for me...we have so much to be grateful for! I'm so grateful for my family and that we are all so healthy and that we live in a country that allows us the freedom of religion and opportunity to work hard to provide so many luxuries to our children. I know - not eloquently put but I was thinking a lot of those poor Romanian children in the orphanages and how grateful I am that I don't have to send my children away just so they can have a "shot" at a better life or send them away just to "hope" they will get fed more than I can feed them. I'm so grateful that a.) have the knowledge that I have B.) have the resources I need and of course C.) have a wonderful husband who works hard for us so that we can provide our children with the basics and beyond. What a huge blessing!

Anyway...back to pictures...

The girls had a great morning hanging out with daddy outside while I cooked. I love this action shot of Bailey


And Piper is always such a little mom! Love the boots and tutus:)

Here are my favorite turkey's playing play dough Wednesday night waiting for daddy to get home and start the celebrations.

Picture Overload!

I was going to blog yesturday because it was Lena's 3 month birthday but just ran out of time! I think a day late will be ok though:) Yup...Lena is 3 months old!! How fast time flies! I can't believe it - she is getting big so fast. She is just always soooooo alert and loves to smile at ANYONE who will smile back - heck! Even if they don't smile back like the puppy on her bouncer, she still smiles! She giggles REALLY cute! It's not dainty at all which you would think it would be by looking at her. She has just discovered her hands and has a great time going to town chowing on them. Talk about slobber! Piper and I were trying to get a good 3 month old picture of her last night but this is the best we could get. I think all of them turned out with her looking like she'd just seen a ghost. Anyway, she is a beautiful, sweet, perfect baby and I just wish time could stand still so I could enjoy it a little longer.

Curtis was really late on Monday so we decided to have FHE last night and we decided to start holding our kids to a chore chart. I know! We are aweful and insane for not having started yet but I just wasn't sure how to go about it. Well last night we made up charts and talked about what all our chores are blah blah and guess what... Piper is SOOOOOOOO excited about it!!! I knew she would be because she is awesome like that but I didn't think she'd be THIS into it! So today we decorated little jars for each of them that when they go over and above their chores or do a good deed or are super nice to me or each other they can earn a pom pom to put in it. Once it's full they get to go on a special outing with one of us - Piper is STOKED! All day she's been cleaning up after herself and asking if she can help and saying please and thank you and EVEN sharing! I love it! I hope she keeps it up because I REALLY REALLY want to take her to the Nutcracker in Houston - wouldn't that be so fun!

Moving on...I went to a thrift store and got this little bumbo seat and LOVE it. Lena is still not a fan of laying on her back and so this chair is PERFECT for her. I just threw this pic in because it has all my cute girls in it.


This last weekend we went to Houston outdoor theater for a super fun russian circus performance totally FREE! and we got seats up close! How great is that. Piper LOVED it and it was actually a really good performance!




On October 30th we blesses little Lena! She was so good and SOOOO cute. This is her in her blessing dress. I was sad I couldn't use the same dress that Piper and Bailey were blessing in but they were blessed so early and we waited so long to bless Lena BUT it was fun to get to pick out a new one! I thought she was ADORABLE!!


We were so lucky to get to have Curtis's family out for it and had SOOOO much fun with them. Wow! it sure was a whirlwin (sp?) of a weekend though! We went to the beach on saturday, rode the 4 wheeler and motorcycle in the afternoon and went to Kemah in the evening! Sunday we blessed Lena in the Relief Society room (haha - our bad! we didn't know it was stake conferance until after everyone had bought there tickets - oops!) which was nice to have our family and close friends there then had a BBQ at our house after. It sure was a party! In the afternoon everyone (minus me and chelsea) went on a walk to the park by our house and little Bailey hurt her ankle:( going down the slide. She crawled for the next week but she's back up on it now at least until she decides Lena has been held too much and it's her turn - then she acts like it hurts again;)

Here's my little beach baby! She ALWAYS has been since she was a tiny baby- LOVES the beach! I swear she could entertain herself at the beach indefinately!

(I swear the water was warm and I was NOT torturing her) little Lena, however, is not sure about the beach yet

Bailey entertained herself with the birds at the beach. I think she chased them the whole time we were there!

Halloween was a blast! Piper and Bailey were Minie and Mickey Mouse at the ward trunk-or-treat and Lena was a lobster in Chef Curtis's pot. Then for Halloween Piper wanted to be a butterfly (from TWO years ago! I couldn't believe it still fit!) and Bailey was Mickey and Lena was a little pumpkin. We partied at Julie's AWESOME Halloween party and then went off to collect some sweets! Bailey didn't fair too well in the treats department because she couldn't walk and therefore couldn't go to as many houses but I don't think she minded - we just hung out at Julie's house and ate all her Halloween candy:) while Piper went trick-or-treating with the big kids and Julie.

It sure has been a fun month and we are still on a high from having so many cousins here to play with! Wish we could do it more often!